• 한국사회정책
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.429-446
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• 2018

The $4^{th}$ Industrial Revolution, symbolizing the explosive innovation of digital technologies, is expected to have a great impact on labor relations and produce a lot of contested issues. The labor-management issues, created by the $4^{th}$ Industrial Revolution, are as follows: (1) employment restructuring, job re-allocation, and skill-reformation, driven by the technological displacement, resetting of worker-machine relationship, and negotiation on labor intensity and autonomy, (2) the legislation of institutional protection for the digital dependent self-employed, derived from the proliferation of platform-mediated labor, and the statutory recognition of their 'workerness', (3) unemployment safety net, income guarantee, and skill formation assistance for precarious workeforce, (4) the protection of worker privacy from workplace surveillance, (5) protecting labor rights of the digital dependent self-employed and prcarious workers and guaranteeing their unionization and collective bargaining. In comparing how labor unions in Western countries have responded to the $4^{th}$ Industrial Revolution, German unions have showed a strategic approach of policy formation toward digital technological innovations by effectively building and utilizing diverse channel of social dialogue and collective bargaining, while those in the US and UK have adopted the traditional approach of organizing and protesting in attempting to protect the interest of platform-mediated workers (i.e. Uber drivers). In light of the best practice demonstrated by German unions, it is necessary to build the process of productive policy consultation among three parties- the government, employers, and labor unions - at multi levels (i.e. workplace, sectoral and national levels), in order to prevent the destructive damage as well as labor-management confrotation, caused by digital technological innovations. In such policy consultation procesess, moreover, the inclusive and integrated approach is required to tackle with diverse problems, derived from the $4^{th}$ Industrial Revolution, in a holistic manner.

• 한국사회정책
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.1-23
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• 2016

This study evaluates the strategic capacity of Korean labor union movement by examining policy alternatives and strategic steps that the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions have shown in response to Park Geun-Hye government's labor market structuring policies. While the government-led labor reform was carried out as intended, organized labor has not simply failed to achieve progressive labor reforms to enhance employment security, but also to exert their strategic capacity effectively for preventing Park's labor market flexibilization policies. The two national centers have not been able to exert their strategic capacity (such as intermediating, framing, articulating, learning) for mobilizing the resources of internal solidarity, network embeddedness, narrative discourse, and organizational infrastructure. In particular, the formation and diffusion of public discourse is a significant part of strategic capacity of labor unions dealing with the labor politics of labor market restructuring, since organized labor, which is under the unfavorable constraints of limited movement resources and power imbalance with the business circle, needs to mobilize massive support and participation from union members and civil society organizations. In this light, it becomes of more importance for labor union movement to exert their strategic capacity toward internal solidarity and network embeddedness in the stage of labor market reforms. Under the recent stage of labor reforms, however, the labor unions has not harnessed their movement resources effectively, but undertaken their protest in a traditional manner, thereby losing its public efficacy from inside and outside. Moreover, it is necessary to build and activate the network of organic solidarity among organized labor, civil society organizations and progressive political parties, in order to cope with the pro-business coalition of power elites for accomplishing pro-labor reforms.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.105-133
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• 2005

This paper attempts to verify that the economic gap between the workers in (large) firms with unions and those in (small and medium size) firms with no unions has recently been widened rapidly. A comparison of the wages of the workers belonging to the business establishments with and without trade union shows that the union premium has increased very sharply since 1997, after a relatively long periods with little changes. Also found is that union sector has witnessed a sharper decline in the share of the new entrants among workers as well as a faster increase of the average tenure of workers. These all indicate that the trade unions have forced a market equilibrium to move farther away from the competitive equilibrium in recent years.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.27-45
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• 2000

An analysis of factors determining the quality of labor-management realtions shows that they include the external environment factors, the agent factors representing spirits and strategies of unions and employers, and the process factors of interaction channels in bargaining, consultation, and participation. It is found from recent research results that the spirits and strategies of unions and employers is the most important factor and that communication, consultation and sincere bargainings between them are the next most important, while environment factors are rarely important. It is suggested that mutual trust and respects, information sharing, sufficient communication and consultation, joint workplace innovation, and industry-level labor-management consultation are effective tools for good industrial relations.

• Journal of Labour Economics
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• v.29 no.3
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• pp.113-150
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• 2006

This study examines how labor unions change in the 21st centry and what is needed for successful transformation of Korean labor union. The study identifies four major driving forces of change in union's role. They are changes in industrial and occupational structures, utilization of information technology, labor substitution, and changing attitude of workers. The effects are decrease in union membership, shrinking coverage of bargaining, weakening voice mechanism, and representation. Thus, labor unions in the 21st centry transform themselves into service union, individual representation system, and worker participation model. Korean labor union, with its current reputation of militant unionism, needs to transform into above mentioned model. Two keys for the change are market competition and family unionism.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.115-124
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• 2015

In recent days, the issues regarding the artists' status as labor and improvements of laboring circumstances, creating the well-fare system for artists are raised in our society. This paper searches for the process of various artists unions which are performing the important roles in the musical theatre industry in the U.S.A. The artists unions have developed the bargaining contracts and strengthened the protection of their original works. The discussions among many unions provide useful information to the independent artists when they make contracts in our Korean musical theatre market.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing Administration
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.5-15
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• 1997

In studies on the hospital labor-management relations, research about the attitudes of workers and management toward unions was relatively untouched in Korea. This study was investigated to identify the relation among ideal, actual attitudes toward unions, ideal, actual views on nursing profession and career commitment. Data was obtained from a convenience sample of 285 nurses of varying positions, education, career, join union or not. The results of this study were as follows. 1. There was significant differences between ideal attitude toward unions and actual (p < .001). 2. There was significant differences between ideal view on nursing profession and actual (p< .001). 3. There were no correlations between ideal and actual attitude toward unions and nursing career commitment. 4. There were correlation between ideal and actual views on nursing and nursing career commitment(r=.32, r=.46). As the results show, views on nursing profession are more important factor to inhance nursing career commitment than attitude toward union. So the findings of this study suggest that antecedents and moderating variables need to be explored for further theoretical specification and empirical evaluation.

• Korean Journal of Labor Studies
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.213-260
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• 2013

This study pays attention to the restricted use and the possibility of standard position of contingent workers in Brazil. The labor market of Brazil has been developed by formal and informal labor sector, and informal sector includes various precarious workers as well as contingent workers. According to Brazilian Statistics Department, not contingent workers but informal labor focused in this paper have been slowly decreased since year 2000. In this context, this study investigated on the reasons of decreasing contingent employment in Brazil. The results demonstrate that decreased informal employment and instead increased standard workers could not be interpreted by recent the Braizil's economic boom. Along with literature review, the author conducted the case study regarding employment of contingent workers at six large foreign companies in Sao Paulo. The results of this show that the use of contingent employment was prohibited in regular daily works by the labor law and thus firms employed contingent workers in only temporary positions. Further, firms often promise standard positions for contingent workers when temporary employment contract was terminated since there is little or no exist of the differences of wage between standard and contingent worker in terms of 'same work same wage' and 'minimum wage'. In here, labor unions play a key role in employment change from contingent position to standard job. Consequently, decreasing of contingent workers and stepping stone to regular jobs seems to be triggered by both legal regulation on contingent employment and strong unions. This institutional perspective may extend the theoretical view on the use of contingent workers, and the author discuss that Brazil's case could provide practical implications to Korean labor policy.

• The Korean Journal of Financial Management
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.71-89
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• 2005

The purpose of this research is to examine X-efficiency of Korean local credit unions in 2001 by employing the stochastic frontier approach. This study uses the intermediation approach in order to define outputs and inputs of the credit unions. We define the outputs as the amounts of loans, and securities. The inputs are labor, deposit and physical capital. The price of labor is estimated by dividing the total wages by the number of employees. The price of deposit equals total interest divided by total deposit, and the price of physical capital is also computed to divide the total sales and administrative expenses by the physical capital. By the result of this study, the average efficiency score is 0.81. This fact indicates that credit unions can reduce their inputs by 19% for the given outputs. If results are arranged into quartiles based on the efficiency, inefficiency of top 25% credit unions is below 9%, and half of them is over 17%. In addition, e result shows that the efficiency is significantly influenced by region and size even if credit unions in Seoul and Daegu showed little difference in efficiency by size. Generally, medium size credit unions are more efficient than large size.

• Safety and Health at Work
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.321-327
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• 2011

Objectives: To find out from an analysis of empirical data the levels of influence, which a labor union (LU) and Occupational Safety and Health Committee (OSHC) have in reducing the occupational injury and illness rate (OIIR) through their accident prevention activities in manufacturing industries with five or more employees. Methods: The empirical data used in this study are the Occupational Safety and Health Tendency survey data, Occupational Accident Compensation data and labor productivity and sales data for the years 2003 to 2007. By matching these three sources of data, a final data set (n = 280) was developed and analyzed using SPSS version 18 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Results: It was found that a workplace with a LU has a lower OIIR than one without a LU. In manufacturing industries with five or more employees in 2007, the OIIR of the workplaces without a LU was 0.87%, while that of workplaces with a LU was much lower at 0.45%. In addition, workplaces with an established OSHC had a lower OIIR than those without an OSHC. Conclusion: It was found that the OIIR of workplaces with a LU is lower than those without a LU. Moreover, those with the OSHC usually had a lower OIIR than those without. The workplace OIIR may have an impact on management performance because the rate is negatively correlated with labor productivity and sales. In the long run, the OIIR of workplaces will be reduced when workers and employers join forces and recognize that the safety and health activities of the workplace are necessary, not only for securing the health rights of the workers, but also for raising labor productivity.